This paper proposes a simple and cost-effective method named Transmission Error Approximation (TEA) for estimating the distance between two Zigbee devices. The idea is to measure and analyze statistically packet loss rates for approximate distance estimation. We have implemented an experimental prototype for the TEA using Zigbee protocol. The prototype is built on FreeScale?s MCF5208 evaluation boards that have a built-in MC13192 ZigBee Transceiver chip. Field experiments have been carried out at the lacrosse field on URI campus. Measurement results show that TEA is a cost-effective way of distance estimation and provides much better resolution than other methods based on signal strength when the distance is greater than 60 feet.